The Elements of Excellence:

Employee Experience
and OKRs
How the world’s most successful companies
are outperforming the competition and how you can too.
Table of Contents

Introduction4

What is Employee Experience? 5

Employee experience is the design principle for looking at human processes.  5

The technique used by the best, ignored by the rest at their peril. 5

Human needs for connection and purpose in the workplace. 5

What are the benefits of getting Employee Experience right? 7

Why a great employee experience makes for a healthier bottom line.  7

What are the costs of getting Employee Experience wrong? 8

Should you focus on CX or EX?  8

The evolution of the employer and employee relationship. 8

Traditional incentive structures are not working as well as they used to. 8

Why a new generation of workers is voting with their feet. 9

How Employee Experience moved to business critical. 9

The elements of Employee Experience 10

OKRs as the backbone of Employee Experience 12

The curse of functional silos. 12

The fallacy of rear-view mirror management.  13

The chasm between strategy and execution. 13

Why agile is not the answer to aligning strategy with execution. 14

The Elements of Excellence:

2
Employee Experience and OKRs
A strategic vision: the missing piece of the puzzle. 14

Strategy with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) 14

The tools of the trade for companies that win. 14

The amazing history of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). 18

The Story of OKRs: from Intel to Google to legend. 18

OKRs were built for change and transformation – at speed.  19

How OKRs change the conversation 19

Why you should keep the priority pyramid top-light and bottom-heavy. 19

How does implementing OKRs feel to your top team as an experience? 21

The impact of transparency on performance and productivity. 22

How to run your business according to HCT Technologies. 22

The Dyson success story as a blueprint for organizational excellence. 23

What really changes organizational culture? 24

OKR excellence starts with. 24

Some tips for implementing OKRs. 25

Conclusion27

The Elements of Excellence:

3
Employee Experience and OKRs
Introduction
Employee Experience (or EX) is an emerging
discipline and is gaining a powerful foothold in
organizations around the world. It borrows directly
from well-established consumer marketing
techniques that seek to understand the Customer
Experience (or CX) when engaging with a brand.
Recent research by several respected thought
leaders such as Gallup, Gartner, Forrester and many
other leading employee engagement companies,
shows a direct and powerful correlation between
organizational excellence and EX. An optimized
Employee Experience has been shown to lead
to direct improvements in CX, in turn creating
increased brand loyalty and revenue opportunities
for companies that get it right.
Further, when employees feel connected to the
purpose and mission of an organization, they
take on more personal accountability for its
success, unilaterally reducing costs, improving
communication and collaboration and driving
bottom line results through innovative methods.
While it is still all too common for organizations to
adopt ‘black box’ or siloed management structures,
transparent goal management and alignment
create a culture of ‘we’re all in this together’. The
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) approach,
invented at Intel in the 1980s and credited with
driving Google’s incredible growth, is engineered
for this very outcome.
Restructuring traditional hierarchical functions
into cross-functional teams to deliver projects in
an agile manner creates a collaborative alignment
of key skills, experiences and perspectives that
radically improve operational capability.
Driving a cultural imperative that actively engages
everyone in the business to see how their
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
contributions (personal or team OKRs) link directly
to parent level OKRs keeps everyone connected
with what matters most.
In smaller companies, it helps maintain focus
during chaotic growth spurts, globalization and
continuous interruption or distraction. In larger
companies, it brings back the perception of
localizing and making real the mission, purpose
and core values that a company holds dear and is
aiming to achieve.
This e-book introduces the discipline of
Employee Experience and makes a case for what
organizations can achieve when they get it right.
It links the perceived outcomes of an optimized
Employee Experience with the Objectives and Key
Results (OKRs) method, as the two are inextricably
linked and highly complementary. It is divided into
two distinct parts.
The first discusses what Employee Experience (EX)
is as a Human Centered Design concept – what
the benefits are of getting it right, doing it wrong,
how the constructs of Employee Experience are,
and how does this factor into the Objectives and
Key Results (OKR) methodology.
The second part addresses how the use of the
OKR method across your enterprise ‘changes
the conversation’ across the organization about
how things are done, determining what matters
most, and embracing that focus, alignment and
transparency every day.
We hope you enjoy the read.
The Gtmhub team.
4
What is Employee
Experience?
Employee experience is the design
principle for looking at human
processes.
Every organization and every employee are on a jour-
ney. At thousands of touch points, these journeys in-
teract. Employee experience is about identifying the
interactions or touch points that matter most and
making sure they meet the needs of both the em-
ployees and the organization.
These concepts are not new. They have been bor-
rowed from the concept of Human Centered Design
or HCD. HCD is a discipline that attempts to under-
stand how human beings interact with products and
brands in order to optimize competitive advantage
by engineering the best possible human experience
with a product and, over time, a powerful connection
to the brand.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
The technique used by the best,
ignored by the rest at their peril.
Coca-Cola, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, automotive
manufacturers, technology hardware and software
developers, clothing and jewelry creators, luxury
goods companies and many others have been using
principles of Human Centered Design for decades.
What for? To unpack human behavior and create ex-
tended loyalty, ambassadorship and deep psycho-
logical connections to their products and brands.
Human needs for connection and
purpose in the workplace.
Employers are only now beginning to come terms
with the notion that creating a consistently positive
human experience at work might very well increase
attractiveness, improve recruitment cycles, increase
5
productivity, reduce absenteeism and un-
der-performance, improve communication
and inter-group collaboration and support
employees to creatively innovate across the
spectrum of people, process, technology and
customer centricity.
We live very complicated lives these days.
We also spend more rather than less time at
work, on average. Incorporating ‘moments
that matter’ most into the everyday experience
of working often radically improves our ability
to focus, think, produce and engage with one
another every day. Employers can do this by
Belonging
Our need to fit in
Significance
Our desire to stand out
Fairness
Our aspiration to be treated
equitably
Autonomy
Our preference for our own
choices
The Pioneers – Matt Grimshaw
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
either allowing us the space and freedom to
connect more seamlessly with our working
and living lives or by enhancing and support-
ing how we contribute.
We have discovered, through significant re-
search conducted over many years, that there
are powerful intrinsic motivations that optimize
our psychological state and create a sense
of well-being and contentment within us all,
that powers our behavior toward one another.
Those include:
Positive emotions
Wanting to feel happy
Progress
Our impulse to improve
Meaning
Our drive to do something
valuable
6
What are the benefits
of getting Employee
Experience right?
Why a great employee experience makes for a healthier bottom line.

Achieving a working environment where employees are consistently in a positive psychological

state are beneficial both from a human perspective, as well as from a commercial perspective.
Finding this balance can be difficult and require some core changes to the way in which we think
about human experience at work, but the results enjoyed by those organizations that manage it,
are proving incredible.
A recent global survey performed by Officevibe of 1,000 employers in 48 countries shows the
following results with regard to engagement of people at work:

• Highly engaged business units result in 21% greater profitability.

• Highly engaged business units realize a 41% reduction in absentee-
ism and a 17% increase in productivity.
• Highly engaged business units achieve a 10% increase in customer
ratings and a 20% increase in sales.
• Companies with engaged employees, outperform those without by
202%.
• Customer retention rates are 18% higher on average when employ-
ees are highly engaged.

Elevate employee experience to boost

performance

Imagine what your organization can achieve if extraordinary moments

– both big and small – are created for and with your teams each day.
By elevating employee experience, you can optimize for productivity
and performance. Gtmhub supports team-centric work and offers an
engaging platform for goal alignment, performance management, and
traditional HR processes.

Try it free for 7 days Request a demo

The Elements of Excellence:

7
Employee Experience and OKRs
What are the costs of getting
Employee Experience wrong?
Should you focus on CX or EX? beit reluctantly, providing for often minimal, statutory
policy support for time off of work to take a vacation,
There is one right answer. With the trending focus have a baby, attend a funeral or meet external obliga-
on Customer Experience (or CX) many organizations tions such as military service or jury duty.
have not pivoted to the truth that the best customer Regrettably, the relationship between employer and
experience comes from a good employee experience. employee has often been seen as a Master/Slave rela-
tionship. Employees often see their employers as psy-
chologically disconnected, tone deaf and colorblind
“Customers do not come first.
in regard to their lives outside work.
Employees come first. If you take care
Meanwhile our lives at work (and outside work) have
of your employees, they will take care
become increasingly more frenetic, complicated, and
of the customers.”
challenging. Yet pay, reward, benefits and employ-
SIR RICHARD BRANSON ment policies never keep pace with our expectations
or perceptions of fairness or economic markers such
In fact, most organizations are downright ignoring as inflation.
employee experience and thereby foregoing all of the
productivity benefits of an engaged workforce.
Traditional incentive structures are
A recent Gallup survey found that:
• A staggering 87% of employees worldwide are not not working as well as they used to.
engaged.
Traditionally, great business management has always
• Disengaged employees cost organizations be-
focused on maximizing profits, ensuring a positive
tween $450 and $550 billion annually.
shareholder dividend or investor exit, and thus keep-
There has been a significant level of corporate soul
ing costs under tight control. As payroll and benefits
searching aimed at understanding how people feel
costs typically involve between 75% and 85% of most
while being connected to working activity.
companies’ balance sheets, it’s no surprise that em-
The vast majority of people don’t feel that their work-
ployers keep their annual cost increases in this area
ing environment does much to support their own in-
between 1% and 3% on average. If you’re an employ-
trinsic motivations, nor their individual life journeys.
ee in these organizations, you’re not deeply enthusi-
This is not surprising.
astic by pay and benefits as your primary motivational
driver.

The evolution of the employer and

employee relationship.
“There is one and only one social
For hundreds of years, employers have not thought responsibility of business —engage
deeper about their workers than the provision of an in activities designed to increase its
employment contract in the form of agreed hours and profits.”
a salaried wage. Employee engagement was just that
MILTON FRIEDMAN,
– a contractual agreement.
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, SEPTEMBER 1970
This agreement involved paying a salary, potentially
offering medical and other insurance benefits and, al-

The Elements of Excellence:

8
Employee Experience and OKRs
Employers who don’t pay attention to the intrinsic psy-
chological motivators, or ignore our life’s ‘moments
that matter,’ but feel that pay and benefits ought to
satisfy our intrinsic requirements, are missing a criti-
cal set of motivators to support our best performance
at work. It’s no wonder that global engagement is
hovering around 13% overall – or seeming to exist in
abundance at a handful of companies but is shock-
ingly absent in most others.
The pain points created by under-valuing the impact
of human experience on productivity across the spec-
trum of their lives are profound. It is not simply a case
that employees are mildly dissatisfied that their pay
and benefits are unfair compensation for their time,
effort and energy. Rather, we are feeling aggrieved,
disconnected and deeply frustrated that our employ-
ers just ‘don’t get us.’
Why a new generation of workers is
voting with their feet.
Newer generations of employees are even more pro-
foundly disinterested in a traditional employer/em-
ployee relationship as they are demanding (through
actions not words) a workplace where deep engage-
ment across the span of their psychological motiva-
tions be abundant and prevalent.
With unemployment figures diving to new lows, em-
ployers are finding themselves scrambling to address
employer competitiveness.
They need better branding, superior pay, benefits,
policies and a radically improved overall human ex-
perience.
This is especially true in knowledge-based industries
such as technology, pharmaceutical, bio-technology,
automotive, AI, blockchain and other emerging sec-
tors.
How Employee Experience moved to
business critical.
As such, employee experience has moved from a
‘nice to have’ to a matter of competitive advantage
and even, corporate survival.
The war for talent is raging.
Attracting the best talent to push businesses to the
next several levels of achievement can make or break
a company. For that, employers must ensure they
are embodying best practice in engaging people by
tapping into their intrinsic motivations whilst also sup-
porting and progressing organizational needs.
Finding that magical intersection where everyone
pulls in the same direction, at speed and with expo-
nential effort and outcomes, is not easy but increas-
ingly necessary.

Align every individual in your organization

around a common purpose

Organizations move faster when everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Clarify the company goals and every individual’s contribution with Gtmhub’s
intuitive OKRs management platform. When employees can visualize their
part and objectives are shared transparently, you can truly move to radical
goal alignment that will propel organizational growth.

Try it free for 7 days Request a demo

The Elements of Excellence:

9
Employee Experience and OKRs
The elements of Employee
Experience
In thinking about what makes superior employee ex-
perience come to life, we need to look at ‘moments
that matter’ – both from an organizational perspec-
tive, as well as from an individual’s perspective.
Just looking at an organization’s view point, elements
associated with continued customer and revenue
growth, market expansion, product portfolio, quality
and viral adoption, improved distribution, more effec-
tive partnerships with vendors and resale partners,
reduced risk and cost, adding more seamless effi-
ciency across people, process and technology.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
Individuals are looking to for a ‘fair deal’ in commit-
ting a significant chunk of their lives to an employer’s
mission – so pay, benefits and life supportive policies
have to be minimally competitive – both by industry
sector and region.
That often gets potential candidates interested in an
advertised job specification in a recruitment process.
But to then attract and successfully recruit top tier tal-
ent into your company – you need to connect on an
emotive basis.
10
 Exploring the Elements of Value: Enhance Your Marketing Strategy

The Elements of Excellence:

11
Employee Experience and OKRs
OKRs as the backbone of
Employee Experience
The hierarchy of operational excellence has tradition-
ally been for our Board level chiefs to take stock in
the company’s current financial health, to drill down
into the performance of our various products and
services in our chosen markets, look at how our com-
petitors are doing, and then dive into the costs, pric-
ing models, go-to-market strategy, sales and market-
ing performance. Then they perform SWOT analysis
to ‘tune-up’ their capabilities, expenses and risks in
various areas to ensure a tightly run operation.
Off the back of this typically annual exercise, we of-
ten looked solely at the financial health of our com-
plex efforts in delivering on the promises we’ve made
to investors, shareholders and the financial markets –
looking into the rear-view mirror of our prior quarter’s
or year’s performance to ascertain if we are winning
or losing.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
The curse of functional silos.
Where we saw year-over-year sales, revenue and prof-
its lagging, we’d retool our three to five-year strategy
to address product innovation, pricing configuration,
competitive positioning, and try to find our differenti-
ation relative to competitors such that we might catch
them unaware, and hopefully soak up revenues and
opportunities they’ve not thought about.
Our three to five-year strategies then needed to be
communicated across the company. This was often
was an afterthought.
It was often presumed by the CEO that each Chief
would take his/her own set of siloed deliverables
away and ensure effective execution within each of
their domains (Sales, Marketing, Operations, Pro-
duct/R&D, Manufacturing, Engineering), and the cor-
12
porate support functions would then react to their re- The chasm between strategy and
quirements to support their success. Our efforts often
execution.
began to fall apart at this stage.
We felt less informed than ever about what we were
The fallacy of rear-view mirror
meant to do – aside from that quarterly performance
management. speech offered up by our esteemed leadership team,
where the art of presentation superseded our ability
Our CEOs would presume the CXO team would draw
to make sense of the content of their speeches.
up their own goals and targets for their silos and com-
Sure, we walked away slightly bubblier than when we
municate those back up to the Big Kahuna. He or she
walked in – and left with a sense that all was in hand
would then pour over the details, red-lining endlessly
– we only had to keep doing more of the same things
and forcing edits ad nauseum until the finished result
we’d always been doing, but better, faster and more
was unrecognizable from the original.
cheaply than ever before. And came to realize in our
The CEO felt they had done their duty to their share-
subsequent restless night’s sleep that this last bit was
holders and Board of Directors – properly aligning the
entirely on us to make a reality.
various siloed efforts and attacking critical weakness-
The truth is that the following months and quarters
es to give the company every chance of achieving
continued to grind away at our slightly uplifted spirits
their three to five-year vision.
as the work load continued to build, the pressure to
Then it came time to communicate the resulting siloed
keep things coming faster and more cheaply mount-
strategies down into the company’s divisions and de-
ed, whilst our enthusiasm waned to below strategic
partments – in the hope that every employee would
pre-launch levels – as it appeared the more things
magically absorb the overarching vision and strategic
presumably changed – the more they stayed the
planning and mold that into a set of behaviors and
same, if not become worse.
tasks that would ensure everyone was dancing to the
Our managers became exhausted curriers of ever
same song.
more painful work load challenges, with every more
Often the corporate strategy would sit high atop rows
cost conscious thinking – and ‘do more with less’ be-
of filing cabinets – dumbed down for all to compre-
came the mantra of the employee realm – with deep
hend – into soggy and waffling psycho-blather with
cynicism forming in the hearts and minds of other-
cliché phrasing such as:
wise able bodied employees – each time they strolled
• Be customer centric in everything we do
past those decaying emblems hanging from the walls
• Become the most innovative creator in our indus-
– cheap remnants of a bygone inspiration that left ev-
try
eryone feeling a bit hopeless and frustrated that such
• Think in ways our competitors can’t imagine
uplifting ambitions were falling into disrepair as yet
• Run your teams as if you were running your own
another year droned on.
businesses
More enlightened companies are adopting and ex-
• Be the runaway leader in everything we do
panding Agile working principles across their enter-
• Let your imagination run wild and never stop be-
prises to try and combat the drudgery of 20th century
lieving
hierarchical working practices – learning from the ter-
The employees would receive endless emails coming
rific efficiencies that Silicon Valley software compa-
from the Internal Communications office citing these
nies have experienced in the recent decade.
magical precepts as if they were self-explanatory,
deeply inspirational and obviously evident that we
then knew how to behave, engage and deliver every
day.
Except…We didn’t.

The Elements of Excellence:

13
Employee Experience and OKRs
Why agile is not the answer to
aligning strategy with execution.
The notions of two-week sprints with morning stand-
ups, bi-weekly scrums and project retrospectives
seek to make cross-functional and highly focused the
complicated project deliverables that lead to better
products, tight deadlines and iterative delivery across
parallel activities throughout the company.
But the chasm between some lofty and overly am-
biguous three to five-year strategy and the daily grind
of continuous task management appears to leave us
employees scratching our heads – wondering why we
keep shoveling water against the tide everyday – not
knowing if we’re winning or losing in achieving lofty
goals and targets.
And frenetic task mastering is confusing our manage-
ment teams – as their new roles as Scrum Masters are
meant to help direct, coach and mentor us – but not
necessarily to micro-manage us as that is now our ac-
countability – in becoming self-directed, cross-func-
tional teams aiming to deliver projects at hyper-speed
– with little time to look up from our work to know if
we’ve actually ticked a box in the strategic column of
our overall vision.
A strategic vision: the missing piece
of the puzzle.
The missing piece is the connective tissue that sits in
between a well-crafted and properly aligned strategic
vision, under-pinned by a very personalized mission
that we can all psychologically attach our own work-
ing lives to.
We struggle to make the everyday link between three
to five-year visions to the mountain of project work
staring us in the face.
And though Agile working can help break our working
days down into bite-sized chunks – we still don’t nat-
urally make the link between everyday activity and big
hairy audacious visions – because we just don’t have
the mental capacity left to make the links become real
– and there is no verification, visualization or evidence
that we’re achieving the goals that underpin the CEO’s
ultimate aims.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
Strategy with Objectives and Key
Results (OKRs)
It’s the connective tissue – the strategic execution
methodology we’ve all been missing in our bid to
make sense of the work we’re embroiled in every day.
OKRs, as a strategic execution construct are what
translates a three to five-year strategic vision into
quarter-on-quarter Objectives (description of what
needs to be achieved), which are underpinned by the
Key Results (quantitative evidence of achievement
that prove an Objective was completed).
This method forces the C-Suite to break down to
quarterly chunks the top 3 priorities that need to be
achieved in order to meet annual goals/targets that
over the course of 3-5 years aims directly to accom-
plish the lofty ambitions of the company.
OKRs force the black-box thinking that the C-Suite of-
ten creates (in addressing financial, product/solution,
pricing, competitive market placement and growth
targets), into the open – wherein the CEO and Exec
team must derive their top three Objective priorities
for the year, then quarter-on-quarter – starting at the
top – and then further develop the top three priorities
for each operational unit, team and down to individu-
al level, within the business – linked directly to those
over-arching Objectives in a very transparent, aligned
and rigorous manner.
This then becomes that critical bridge between lofty
visions and daily task completion – and helps every
human being in the company see weekly how their
work is contributing to the achievement of those Ob-
jectives, through the completion of their Key Results.
Suddenly the light bulbs start going off – and the
clarity builds in the minds of every person when they
realize achieving their personal and team OKRs are
then helping tick boxes automatically at the Individual,
Team, Department, Division and Corporate levels.
The tools of the trade for companies
that win.
OKR management software can bring this clarity and
realization to life on each and every employee’s digi-
tal devices – and help scale transparent clarity, track
activity and provide fascinating data insights into how
well (or not so well), the organization is performing, at
every level within the organization.
14
The real magic happens when a team of people has to reverse engineer their ambitious long-term strategy and break
it down into operational priority, on a quarterly cadence.
The debate is rich, contentious and challenging – and forces powerful conversations, deep insight into the efficacy of
the business’ focus, and launches intense examination into a company’s actual capability, resource constraint and
managerial acumen to realize the actual risks to a business in its bid to overcome the harsh and confusing landscape
in front of it.
It’s not easy because the OKR method invites challenging everything – and brings out the best in human interaction
to ensure you achieve the best and most realistic results – and don’t get lost in idealized concepts that don’t survive
translation into real action, deep consideration or quantitative Key Results.
Taking on the OKR method, as a way of thinking, working and achieving, is akin to becoming a Black Belt in strategic
execution – where wooly wording and overly idealized marketing speak isn’t effective and finds no home. Not unless
it can be converted into a quarterly, prioritized Objective that links directly to the higher-level Objectives in achieving
annual targets, goals and strategic mission.

Discover how Gtmhub can deliver focus, alignment and

engagement to your organization. It’s the world’s most intuitive
OKRs management platform that also optimizes employee
experience.

Try it free for 7 days Request a demo

The Elements of Excellence:

15
Employee Experience and OKRs
The adoption of the OKR approach is not to be taken light-heartedly because there is no ‘faking it.’ You either accom-
plish an Objective through the achievement of Key Results – or you don’t. OKRs bring many benefits to a business.
Some of the more common ones are:

• Focus – Making sure the entire company knows what matters, every quarter
• Alignment – Driving the right results – regardless of silo or department
• Engagement – Building the ‘big picture’ to help people attach to the mission at hand
• Transparency – Ensuring there are no ‘black box’ agendas, as everyone can see what’s required
• Accountability – Showing what actions belong to which people, teams and departments openly
These are concepts widely associated with new ways of working that include Agile and cross-functional teams.
These are not just corporate-speak buzzwords – but a successfully proven approach to working seamlessly with
teams of experts or specialists to get complex projects moving at pace – over tightly defined ‘sprints’ and daily ‘stand-
ups’ and ‘wash-ups’ to keep tabs on progress – ensuring that everyone knows what they need to do, what support
they need, and what challenges lay ahead to achieve the sprint goals.
But how does any of this relate to an improved employee experience? Let’s recall those intrinsic motivators that often
drive us all:

Belonging Positive emotions

Our need to fit in Wanting to feel happy

Significance Progress
Our desire to stand out Our impulse to improve

Fairness Meaning
Our aspiration to be treated Our drive to do something
equitably valuable

Autonomy
Our preference for our own
choices

The Pioneers – Matt Grimshaw

A well-executed OKRs approach helps people see they are part of a bigger picture, something bigger than each of us
but that we’re clearly a critical part of – Belonging.
OKRs help us put our stamp on the work that clearly matters – which is linked all the way up the chain to what our
organization’s think is important – Significance.
Because of their transparent nature, where anyone can see what other teams or departments are working on, there is
an automatic sense that work is being distributed evenly – and shared across functions to ensure a parallel delivery
process – Fairness.
When we are instructed by our leaders to contribute to prioritizing the most important Objectives and create Key
Results to help measure their progress toward completion – we feel valued, stretched and relied upon to support
business results – Autonomy.
OKRs are a living, breathing roadmap of activity that creates a hive effect. They build a real buzz about everyday ac-
tivity where progress, action and accountabilities are clear and communicated – Positive Emotion.

The Elements of Excellence:

16
Employee Experience and OKRs
We see forward motion everyday – as the ‘black box’
where results used to live is now fully exposed, and
we’re all contributing daily to knocking Objectives off
the list or driving towards new ones – Progress.
We feel connected to a powerful mission, a sense of
purpose – and subsequently – Meaning.
Embracing the OKR method puts us into a positive
and connected frame of mind, where we are all work-
ing diligently and openly toward a well-defined and
articulated set of goals and Objectives. And it brings
us together as a tribe, pulling in the same direction,
making a difference with every action, in a way where
we see progress.
Why OKRs are more effective than
Agile.
of cross-functional behavior doesn’t exist – even
though the idea of it may exist in pockets of the or-
ganization – or at least somewhere in the corporate
values – but not often brought to life.
What the OKR method really does is openly formulate
a unified focus and agenda that legitimizes what work
everyone needs to work towards.
It removes the disconnect between getting work
done at a department, team or individual level – with
what the larger organization says instead is the ‘right
work’ to be done to achieve a larger strategic vision.
More often than not – the high-level organization’s
work is not aligned with what lower level teams or
individuals are working on. That creates a cognitive
disconnect for people - that has a very negative ef-
fect on their sense of meaning, purpose, autonomy
and progress.

Software and hardware creation, build, testing and Adopting the OKR method goes far to align with,
release is the original use case for the OKR method and connect people to, individual psychological
– and therefore a rigorous use case for testing the motivators that drive most of us every day – Be-
efficacy of such a working approach. It works well longing, Significance, Fairness, Autonomy, Posi-
because it simplifies the complexity of a big project tive Emotion, Progress and Meaning.
– into bite sized, consumable chunks that people feel
is achievable and within their reach.
The problem often with Agile working as that the or-
ganization isn’t structured for working cross-func-
tionally – but rather exists in hierarchical silo func-
tions such as Finance, HR, Engineering, R&D, Sales,
Marketing, etc. and the incentive and reinforcement

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The Elements of Excellence:

17
Employee Experience and OKRs
The amazing history of
Objectives and Key Results
(OKRs).
The Story of OKRs: from Intel to
Google to legend.
Remembering why the concept of OKRs came about
in the first place is a rather fascinating story worth
repeating here – to help you realize the power of its
utility – because it wasn’t simply about a slight en-
hancement of Peter Drucker’s Management by Ob-
jectives (MBO) approach created some 14 years ear-
lier in the mid-1950’s – but rather was the result of
an urgent call-to-action by Andy Grove (then CEO at
Intel), wherein his entire company needed to address
a massive shift in memory chip technology and hard-
ware configuration – called Microprocessors.
In the early 1970s, Grove and his team at Intel (a small
company then – founded in 1968) with some incredi-
bly talented engineers, set about to change the face
of core computer memory management – and was
competing with Japan – and Motorola in particular
who were about to turn the face of computing on its
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
head if Intel didn’t pivot quickly to corner their market
in microprocessor technology.
It was an all-or-nothing gamble where customers
were non-existent, and the technology hadn’t been
invented yet – so Grove’s drive and determination to
rally his top engineers to create something powerful,
game-changing and so far-reaching as to become
fundamental to all computing technology was as-
tounding, even by today’s standards.
He invented the OKR method to create a giant white-
board that everyone could see, feel, touch, contribute
toward and modify as they sprinted through a dizzy-
ing series of experiments, pivots, failures and learn-
ings – all in a matter of a year or two – in order to not
just survive in that insanely fast-paced environment,
but to thrive in becoming one of the world’s top com-
puter chip innovators, suppliers and standard bear-
ers for others to follow.
18
OKRs were built for change and
transformation – at speed.
And deploying this method is much more than buying
a bit of software and hoping for the best – it’s about
embracing a whole new way of behaving, working
and engaging in work.
If done right, it changes how you incentivize the right
behavior to get the highest priority tasks completed,
within the defined time-frames to meet challenging
deadlines – supported by intelligent budget and re-
source allocation, and provides for targeted insights
into what’s getting done well, and what needs fixing –
on a daily, weekly and monthly basis (not quarterly or
Plan for OKRs success with Gtmhub.
Driven by 150+ powerful data integrations. Set and manage goals. Align teams. Improve employee
experience. All on the first OKRs platform built for automated results tracking.
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How OKRs change the
conversation
Once you have chosen to adopt the OKRs method,
it’s likely that your mind begins fabricating what the
top OKRs might look like for your particular team.
If you’re the Founder or CEO, then you immediate-
ly struggle with the definition that says Objectives
should be qualitative aspiration, and Key Results
should be numerically oriented or quantifiable results
achieved.
Your brain revolts immediately, screaming that it’s all
too complex and multi-faceted to be broken down
into 3-4 top priorities.
But you are forced into realizing that you should pare
it down to simpler thinking.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
annually as finance reporting slowly rolls into view).
The OKR method is a simple, powerful, and a decep-
tively challenging approach to take in your business
(and life).
It’s a method that really forces hard conversations,
deep consideration and very healthy debate internal-
ly to ensure you and your colleagues are all agreed
on what needs to get done, by whom, by when, with
what outcomes – monthly, quarterly, annually – to en-
sure you achieve your vision together.
Why you should keep the priority
pyramid top-light and bottom-heavy.
This is often further compounded when a group of
executives are in the room having to debate what
those top priorities are – as everyone sees it from
their perspective first, and it’s the leader’s role to fa-
cilitate that debate, challenge the thinking and get the
best possible result from their team.
The power of the OKR method is where open, con-
structive debate ensues between the executives at
the top table (or at the Divisional or even Departmen-
tal level).
19
This is often seen as a painful – especially within
corporate cultures where contention and conflict are
avoided for various reasons. There could be concern
that egos may be dented or flexed beyond tolerance
levels and anger the creators of corporate strate-
gy. Sometimes simply the presumption we have
that strategy shouldn’t be debated – but accepted
as read – and we’re simply stuck with that vision to
make happen can hold us back from questioning its
veracity.
But the most audacious and disruptive – or even
re-inventive corporate survivors often take the view
that creative contention and healthy debate are the
essence of their success – and thus embrace the
notion that questioning everything (in a constructive
manner) is the best way to ensure success.
“It is not the most intellectual of
the species that survives; it is not
the strongest that survives; but the
species that survives is the one that is
able to adapt to and to adjust best to
the changing environment in which it
finds itself.”
CHARLES DARWIN
We have further learned that genetic adaptation has
a much better chance of success the more it is ex-
posed to mutation – which can go either way as there
are as many failures associated with mutation and
change as there are success stories – but if you do
nothing, question nothing, presume all is ‘in-hand’
and don’t challenge the thinking around you – chanc-
es are your environment is changing, and you’re not
prepared to meet those changes proactively – but in-
stead will react and work harder trying to catch up,
whilst other organizations are racing along with com-
petitive speed and precision.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
The OKR method really pushes cautious corporate
cultures into engaging with debate because setting a
limit of three Objectives quarterly forces a re-thinking
of what is most important to achieve. There will be
winners and losers in terms of which priorities survive
– but that thinking of “I win, you lose” should quick-
ly be replaced by the leaders inviting participants to
“make our Objectives better, together,” where every-
one is invited to contribute to improving what the
top three priorities are.
The nature of the conversation needs to move on
from “I have all the answers and know what’s best
for the company” to a more collegial approach that
requires the best inputs from all functional leaders
into an approach that says, “We all need to contrib-
ute our collective perspectives in creating the most
powerful, game-changing Objectives to reach our
lofty ambitions.”
This process and new conversation don’t feel natural
at first – as we’re all used to a world where the ‘boss’
is King, and their thinking is not to be contested. It
requires a level of personal vulnerability on the lead-
ers’ part to openly admit that he or she doesn’t have
all the answers, isn’t operating at the coal face every
day and it’s essential that the executives in the room
are all invited to question the approaches on the ta-
ble.
It also helps if the leader facilitating the OKR creation
exercise starts things off by presenting the strate-
gic challenges he or she sees the company facing.
Putting the problem on the table for everyone to pull
apart and make sense of, changes the nature of the
exercise, reduces the worry that calling the Emperor
naked.
The pressure to come up with the optimal, most tar-
geted and impactful approach is on all of us – not
just those sat at the top, as they are often the fur-
thest removed from the daily realities of market be-
havior, customer sentiment, product innovation and
resource constraints.
20
How does implementing
OKRs feel to your top team
as an experience?
To be honest, initially, it’s very awkward, if not down-
right scary the first time you go around the room.
Think about how you’d feel if your CEO pulled you
into a room, sat you down and dropped 5-7 issues,
challenges or problems that needed to be solved at
the highest levels – and asked what top 3 things you
would carve out of that mess to focus on in the next
quarter (and the subsequent quarters) such that your
company could hit target that year? I know how I’d
feel – and it isn’t a pretty picture!
This is hard – but it’s also the moment you’ve been
waiting for.
It’s a shot to really have your say in the direction of the
company – and can lend your particular perspective
and vision in addressing the things that matter most,
first – and ensure you attach measures to achieving
those top priorities, so you can prove you got there.
Now if you’re one of the top managers of the CXO’s
team – and she rocks up after her Board meeting and
drops the that quarter’s top three Objectives on you
and says, “OK – here’s what we need to achieve this
quarter – now tell me how you plan on helping me and
our division or department get there? Please work
with your team to come up with your top 3 Objectives
and have them back to me by in the next few days,
OK?”
Your reaction is likely one of a few things…You’re ei-
ther excited to see clarity around what you and your
teams are meant to be focused on – relieved to be
Discover how Gtmhub can deliver focus, alignment and engagement to your organization. It’s the world’s
most intuitive OKRs management platform that also optimizes employee experience.
Try it free for 7 days Request a demo
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
laser focused on the real work that needs doing – or
you may feel that sense of inundation – that beyond
your BAU activities, there is another set of ambitious
goals that your teams need to step into to make hap-
pen.
In our experience – it’s usually the prior emotion that
comes through 9 out of 10 times. Relief that there is
clarity, focus and an immediate sense of what real-
ly matters to the company. Why? Because prior to
the use of the OKR method – most companies are
all over the place trying to sort out the important and
urgent from the unimportant and non-urgent issues.
Typically, the strategic initiatives were drafted by the
CEO and their Board of Directors, then cascaded to
the CXO team – then thundered downhill from there.
No one below CEO had much input into injecting their
real-life realities into the process – and quickly em-
ployees began to feel like their voices weren’t heard,
their experience wasn’t included and the strategic
initiatives driving the company were dropped like un-
expected and unwelcome bombs from above.
That sense of uninformed senior executives, clearly
seeking to placate hungry shareholders and impress
the media such that their stock prices might benefit
filled the hearts and minds of employees with a toxic
cynicism – and felt like that Master-Slave relation-
ship was firmly in place as they foisted unrealistic,
uninformed and unachievable goals and targets upon
them.
21
All the while – the real magic in the best run companies
in the world comes from listening to, being informed
by and incorporating deeply the realistic insights of
the employees working with their customers, markets
and products on a daily basis.
The OKR approach embraces this informed approach
beautifully – if not always smoothly – but realistically –
into determining the What and How things were going
to get done to achieve the company’s Why? Mission.
The impact of transparency on
performance and productivity.
When the support functions of the organization pour
over the OKRs coming from the Executive team, the
Division and Department leads – a further clarity de-
velops that supports the specific operational road
maps that Human Resources, Legal, Finance, IT and
Operations were all looking for as indications of where
they then needed to support company OKR achieve-
ment. Suddenly there are no black boxes (hidden
agendas that trickled out of the ‘Eyes Only’ executives
to the ‘Need to Know’ employees).
It’s all out there for everyone to see. It may still seem
a tad daunting to read through and realize the im-
plications of these ambitious OKRs, but there is no
doubt what the company wants to accomplish – and
it gets you thinking immediate about how you and
your group are going to support those Objectives by
achieving specific Key Results.
Importantly – it immediately kicks off conversations
about resources and financial requirements. Time
constraints and prioritization of key projects. It lifts
the veil on budget allocation and productivity require-
ments. And it gets you focused on the nuts and bolts
of the business without your feeling blind to the chal-
lenges ahead.
In using the OKR method holistically throughout the
business the Why, What and How are out in the open
for everyone to see. The Key Results outlining quanti-
tative measurement for each Objective spell out how
we’ll measure goal achievement – and clearly outlines
what resources, time, effort and money are required
to get there.
There are no more blind arguments over hypothetical
goal posts, and much reduced time wasted on guess
work vs. frank, direct conversations about solving
the issues and challenges in front of everyone in the
meeting room.
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
Suddenly we’re not separated by the ‘Insider Know-
ers’ vs. the ‘Need to Know’ crowd, as we’re all oper-
ating with the same level playing field, solving mutual
problems and shared information in front of us. It re-
minds me of that scene in Apollo 13, when that hor-
rible oxygen tank explosion suddenly threw a moon
mission into disarray, and all the mission engineers
started yelling about malfunction lights and urgent
warnings to a deaf audience – as everyone was doing
the same thing.
Jack Kranz (played by Ed Harris) – the famous Mission
Control Specialist stopped the room cold and asked
everyone to stop yelling about what’s broken, and
instead approach the problem from the position of
what’s working instead. Immediately the room forgot
about hierarchy, job titles, relative political positioning
or importance of role – and everyone was suddenly
brought together as one human problem-solving enti-
ty to get three imperiled astronauts home safely.
Now your OKR experience might not be so dramatic
– but this is the direction you can expect it to drive
discussion and relationships within your organization
moving forward.
How to run your business according
to HCT Technologies.
The ultimate example of leadership admission that
the employees facing off to the ‘real world’ and thus
should be the ones most listened to comes from
Vineet Nayar’s experience with HCT Technologies.
He recounts in his book Employees First/Customers
Second, how critical it was to turn the ‘Value Zone’
upside down – wherein his employees were the driv-
ers of customer insight, strategic focus and market
innovation – whilst the management of the company
worked solely in service of the employees’ efforts and
acted as a Customer Success department to deliver
support, resources and budget where employees felt
it was most impacting.
Did it work? Here are the results in the first three years
of Vaneet’s tenure as CEO:
• HCLT grew at a CAGR of 24 % and increased its
market capitalization by 186% in the last 3 years
• Doubled the number of $10m, $20m & $50m cus-
tomers and tripled the number of $100m custom-
ers
• HCLT’s revenue per employee is amongst the
highest in the Indian IT industry today
22
 • HCLT was also featured as one of the most inno-
vative and disruptive companies globally
• Included in the first ever Executive Dream
Team published by Fortune
• Emerged as the top-ranking IT Services com-
pany in APAC, in Forbes Asia’s ‘Fab 50 List’
• Ranked by TPI in the Top 6 Global Service
Providers by TCV across ALL 3 geographies
(Americas, EMEA, APAC)
The rules of a ‘healthy debate’ process are import-
ant to consider here as they need to be learned, ex-
perienced and lived by leaders – who will then need
to act as coaches for downstream managers and
employees as you learn to adopt a creatively con-
tentious and healthy debate approach working with
OKRs as a way of life within your organization.
We’ll borrow from a terrific recent example of a hy-
per-growth tech company we’re working with, head-
quartered in the UK but growing massively in every
continent around the globe. They have been experi-
menting with the OKR method for some months now
and started their journey first with understanding the
human dynamics inherent within the process of cre-
ating, shaping, improving and then cascading OKRs
throughout their company.
Some of their early learning included the following:
• We set limits on the number of OKRs there can
be – constraint forces debate
• We set aside time for the debate as part of how
we run the cycle – that drives prioritization
• We are starting only at the top level before we go
any further – master the approach before opera-
tionalize
• We have common view of what is needed – clear
guidelines to not confuse objectives, goals, re-
sults, initiatives, projects
The Dyson success story as
a blueprint for organizational
excellence.
Take from a real example where James Dyson,
Founder and CEO of Dyson - that genius vacuum
cleaner inventor worth quite a few million at the mo-
ment) who has suddenly announced in his recent
advertisement series that Dyson will, “Become the
market leader in battery powered, cordless vacuum
cleaners by 2019.”
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
As patents for his specialized suction engine designs
are now being copied by imitators, Dyson has moved
radically into everything from hand dryers to hair dry-
ers, room filtration units to robotics and intelligent
machines.
Additionally, Dyson have just committed £220m in
funding to build out their electric automotive business
here in the UK. James Dyson seeks always to reinvent
and innovate his way around competitors to embrace
concepts we never knew we needed, but suddenly
can’t live without once we buy them. That lofty am-
bition to ‘cut the cord’ and provide homeowners the
freedom to grab a light weight, hand-held vacuum off
the wall charger and clean our entire house without
wrestling with ungainly electric cords or switching
from outlet to outlet – with superior cleaning power
to that of a full power plug in model – is what I’ll focus
on as the ‘strategic vision.’
But to then break that down into something consum-
able – to achieve as an annual Objective might be
something like
“Develop rechargeable battery capability that lasts
over 2 hours per charge.”
To take that down a notch to a quarterly Objective
might be
“Determine whether or not a Cobol-based or Lithi-
um Ion battery material is capable of holding a 2.0
amp charge over a two hour span.”
The Dyson employee working in the laboratory as
part of the battery materials team has a pretty clear
view as to what they need to achieve that quarter.
Key Results may be to breakdown which materials
and test methods will be used to determine wheth-
er or not Cobol vs. Lithium Ion holds that 2.0 amp
charge, as is the desired specification.
Sitting within these KRs are between 3-5 quantitative
targets that need to be met – off the back of per-
forming a number of tasks (experiments, trials, tests
and materials examination). The employee will work
with other team members who are specialists such
as themselves – and in 2 week sprints, and hold a
Friday afternoon wash-up to determine their prog-
ress against both towards completing the sprint suc-
cessfully, and also towards the Key Results we set in
seeking to meet the quarterly Objective.
Technical challenges such as this are pretty straight
forward to breakdown. But what about Marketing,
23
Sales, Human Resources or other more esoteric
functions in your business? Interestingly – when you
break these activities down – and prioritize the top
three things you need to accomplish in a quarter – it’s
actually not hard to conjure up discrete activities that
will help achieve a higher level ‘parent’ Objective.
What is hard is when there is nothing informing you
from directly above what you’re meant to actually do
to achieve a strategic initiative. That chasm kills your
clarity, and often you will revert to doing the things
you’ve always done – hoping for the result to achieve
something that may (or may not) help support the
company strategy.
It recalls Einstein’s famous quote about doing the
same thing repeatedly, expecting a different result
being the essence of insanity.
What really changes organizational
culture?
The typical interactions in strategy creation and ap-
proach to execution sat with the Chairperson and
CEO. They would lock themselves away – often out
of hours – and generate the key tenants underpin-
ning what the corporate strategy needs to address,
and then attempt to articulate the top 5-8 things that,
over the next 2-5 years, the company needs to shift
towards achieving if it wants to remain relevant and
competitive in its market, and ensure its people are
aligned behind a common set of aims to make it hap-
pen.
Embracing the OKR method often requires a new lev-
el of engaging their functional heads to help
• identify the key areas where the company is
struggling or lagging with their customers, prod-
ucts or markets, and
• to then lay out on the table what they’ve mu-
tually identified as areas of focus in products/
solutions, competition, market trends, financial
target performance, and then into operational
capability, efficiency and resilience.
The CEO takes on the role of trusted facilitator vs.
ultimate leader (or powerful overlord), and immedi-
ately sets a new tenor and tone with their team that
implies,
“We’re all in this together, and each of us has own-
ership and a role to play in building mutual under-
standing as to what matters, and how we address
together the challenges we have in front of us.”
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
In the process of sorting out how the various func-
tions will work together to solve complex challeng-
es – critical Objectives emerge that often require a
cross-functional approach to solve for. But regard-
less of how the various functions need to merge
support – there always will be an owner for each of
the Objectives identified, who will be responsible for
oversight, support and sponsorship of that Objective
to support the participants aligned to deliver that Ob-
jective.
Thus, functional executives can find themselves in a
dual role – managing their BAU function to lead, re-
source, support and mentor that team – whilst also
sponsoring a cross-functional team to address as-
pirational Objectives that will drive achievement of
annual goals and targets on a quarterly basis.
This approach opens up a collaborative and aligned
approach to solving complex problems together – as
opposed to each functional leader acting in their own
interests, thinking in a siloed mentality that only fo-
cuses on what Sales, Marketing, Legal, Product, HR
or other divisional groupings should own.
And this collaborative and aligned approach is what
needs to be embraced as a new cultural behavior
such that these leaders can, by example and through
primary experience, engage cross-functional teams
that they decide will work to address the identified
challenges at the top.
OKR excellence starts with.
Leadership vulnerability. Why? Because OKRs are
not about showing up with the ultimate answers, but
the articulated challenges that need to be solved –
and then engaging their functional leaders to con-
tribute to shaping their top 3 Objectives to focus on,
starting with an Annual Objective/Goal, and then
breaking that down into quarter-on-quarter deliver-
ables.
Healthy, constructive debate is the key to success
here. Setting the cultural norms that respect positive
contribution, questioning old presumptions, shaking
out the essence of what is most important and needs
focused resource, are all crucial to a successful tran-
sition to this new and powerful state of thinking and
working together.
The OKR method is a human behavioral transforma-
tion first and foremost – scaled effectively by using
OKR management software to support visual trans-
parency, complex tracking and critical linkages as
24
Plan for OKRs success with Gtmhub.
Driven by 150+ powerful data integrations. Set and manage goals. Align teams. Improve employee
experience. All on the first OKRs platform built for automated results tracking.
Try it free for 7 days Request a demo
well as powerful insights.
The software will help you scale transparency, make
clear the linked connections between Objectives, will
illustrated alignment between functions and help you
track progress and performance throughout the or-
ganization seamlessly. It acts as a structure for cap-
turing what will become a complex web of interac-
tive activity throughout your company – so best if it’s
captured in one tool, for all to see and use.
These sorts of transformations into new ways of be-
having and engaging are never easy. It fits like an
awkward ski boot – where you know it’s going to save
you from a twisted ankle while flying down a snowy
snow face, but there is nothing natural about how
your foot, ankle or calve feels the first time you try it
on for size.
OKR methodology can feel the same way – as you
know there are powerful advantages that will come
from its use – but wow – it can be hard work get-
ting people to undo years of traditional thinking and
behaving – and getting their heads around solving
complex challenges they have never been asked to
participate in.
Some tips for implementing OKRs.
Frame the challenge by asking everyone at the Board
table to close their eyes and imagine they had just
been promoted to CEO.
They were given that lovely corner office (or the slight-
ly larger open plan desk top), and a stack of challeng-
es delivered in a stack of paper about a meter high.
The challenge is that the Board of Directors called a
meeting for the next morning to hear about your new
vision and strategy for the company.
You’re pretty intelligent and experienced – but feel
massively overwhelmed. Where do you start? How
The Elements of Excellence:
Employee Experience and OKRs
does that feel to you? What would you do next?
(Answer: You go gather up the other smartest
people you know who are closest to the challeng-
es sitting on your desk – and get them involved in
helping you come up with something quick – but
smart and well informed.)
You set the ground rules in the room before you start.
Something profound and at the same time deeply au-
thentic like:
“In this room, there are no foolish questions, que-
ries or ponderances. We are in this together, and
we are all working for the same outcomes. Forget
your functional remit, your job title or where your
office resides. Today, you are one of many, on the
same team, solving hard problems together. We
respect one another as equals because we nev-
er know where magical insights will come from.
We’ve all travelled long and hard to get here – and
from this point forward, we’re going to work to-
gether to solve our complicated challenges.
We won’t use negatively charged labels to rip other
people’s ideas apart – but we will add to them,
improve them, bring a different and valuable per-
spective that others may not have thought of – and
together we’ll come up with something amazing.
This is the way I want us to work together moving
forward. This is the way I want our company and
its people to work together forever more. Strange
and disruptive times require ingenuity, creativity,
collaboration and lateral thinking.
And the OKR method is going to help us sort out
what matters most, and how we’ll measure prog-
ress against those things that matter most.”
25
Let everyone know that it’s OK not to have
all the answers – but it’s NOT OK to poke
holes in others’ ideas unless they can come
up with a better one.
It’s also OK to laugh at yourselves, to acknowledge
the awkwardness of the moment as everyone tries
on ‘strange ski boots for the first time.’ Strange times
require strange and unusual solutions.
Get comfortable with strange and get ready
for miraculous new connections and enlight-
enments to come about.
As leader and facilitator of this new process – your
role is to enforce these new ground rules and keep
the peace as it will challenge people in ways that
make them uncomfortable and stress causes people
to act in unusual ways.
Let them get comfortable with bad ideas, tentative
thinking, and watch for positive ways in which your
people experiment (often carefully) with one anoth-
er in collaborating with others, reaching out for help,
offering supportive comments or ideas for improve-
ment.
Call those moments out proudly and make sure peo-
ple can link the right behavior with immediate recog-
nition.
Don’t be afraid to apply a bit of pressure, encourage-
ment or support – but whatever you do – don’t blast
people for not working faster, smarter or not having
‘your idea’ of the potential outcome.
You can tamp down bad actors and offer breaks as
this can be mentally exhausting the first or second
time around. Be all about trust, respect, recognition,
encouragement and don’t be afraid to push a bit to
get things moving if they’re stuck.
But don’t give them the answers – that’s cheating.
And it will only end with everyone staring at you, wait-
ing for the rest of your good thinking to finish the day!
Training internal champions of the OKR
method is crucial to success.
You can’t be the only expert at your company, be-
cause you can’t scale (and frankly it’s not likely what
you want to be doing anyway).
Assign some great role models who you think rep-
resent your best facilitators, natural trainers and re-
spected workers. People will listen to them, learn
from them more naturally and help scale your efforts
more readily.
Your focus is on your immediate tribe of thinkers and
solvers – and your second role is that of cheerleader
and champion. Save yourself some time and do both
things by being a living example of what ‘great looks
like.’
This way you’re getting the job done – while you’re
being the cheerleader and champion. It helps to have
fun in the process – as it takes the concern and worry
people have about participating in a new and differ-
ent way.
If things are really hard – and your team
members start to approach you about feeling
inadequate, under-pressure, uncomfortable
and ill-at-ease with this new approach – con-
sider offering them coaching in influence and
negotiation skills.
Not surprisingly, Introverts may struggle to engage
in an open setting, but can often add powerful and
deeply considered insight - so offer opportunities
to meet privately, in a quiet and comfortable setting
where they feel more inclined to contribute freely and
openly.

Improve productivity and employee engagement

Happy employees are productive employees. Amplify employee productivity and engagement by making
use of Gtmhub’s continuous feedback, collaboration, and recognition features. Gtmhub’s collaboration
and recognition features are all designed to improve employee engagement and boost productivity.

Try it free for 7 days Request a demo

The Elements of Excellence:
26
Employee Experience and OKRs
Conclusion

There are few better examples around driving com-

Every day these days feels like we’re catching up
plex team human endeavor than in the sporting are-
from behind, as the distance keeps changing, our
na – and when you look at the level of feedback, the
competitors are coming out of nowhere, the race’s
data capture and instantaneous visibility to everyone
pace itself seems to exponentially increase with each
who is watching – as well as how the coaches and
step and suddenly newer generations of runners are
team leaders then respond in real-time to those data
entering into the fray with entirely different rule books
points, plans, plays and environmental responses,
and perspectives, shaped by an era of technological
there is probably no more apt a comparison.
advances none of us have ever experienced in human
Up until recently, only a handful of large businesses,
history.
and mostly smaller businesses have been operating
The only way to have a chance at winning this race is
anywhere close to that level of intelligent reactivity –
to start managing it in real time, getting every genera-
but today, in the Digital Age, it is a core requirement
tion and level of individual in your organization tuned
for survival. Rapid adaptation, at speed, with intel-
up and involved in running your business, transpar-
ligence and informed reactivity is the way forward.
ently ensuring everyone knows the why, what and
And keeping it simple, transparent, aligned and im-
how you’re planning to achieve your strategic vision,
proved through continuous learning is the key to op-
and changing the conversation in the hallways, meet-
erating in a hyper-transformational environment such
ing rooms and online chats where it’s all about what
as we’re in today. Objectives and key results is your
got done, what’s not getting done and what are we
path forward. Gtmhub brings everything else you’ll
going to do about it tomorrow?
need to make it scale, simply and effectively.

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themselves.
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The Elements of Excellence:

27
Employee Experience and OKRs